Yale SPORE in Lung Cancer News

The Yale School of Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics is experiencing the end of an era. Four senior faculty representing more than 120 years of teaching and research experience have either recently retired or soon will retire. The work of these distinguished leaders in biostatistics at Yale – Robert Makuch, Theodore Holford, Peter Peduzzi, and Daniel Zelterman - helped define the department as it exists today.

In a new study, Yale Cancer Center researchers found molecular explanations for why some lung tumors respond better to certain drugs than others. The research should help improve drug selection for lung cancer patients with different mutations in the EGF receptor, using a precision medicine approach to treatment.

Q&A with Roy Herbst, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, in recognition of Lung Cancer Awareness Month.

An updated analysis of the phase III ADAURA trial revealed a median disease-free survival (DFS) of 5.5 years for early-stage, EGFR-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who received osimertinib (Tagrisso) in the postoperative setting, with nearly three in four patients treated with the adjuvant therapy free of disease at 4 years.

It has been 20 years since the discovery of EGFR mutations and almost 25 years since we first used EGFR inhibitors in the clinic. This resulted in a paradigm shift regarding the way we think about lung cancer. Now that we have drugs which target growth factor receptors, and we use them to slow the growth of tumors, giving rise to dramatic responses.

Newly released results from the Phase III ADAURA trial reveal that osimertinib yielded a 5.5-year median disease-free survival in the post-surgical treatment of patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer, and nearly three in four patients treated with adjuvant osimertinib were disease-free at four years. The new results also indicated that the use of osimertinib reduced the risk of disease recurrence in the brain and spinal cord. The results from the study were presented today at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 in Paris.

A combination of the drugs ramucirumab and pembrolizumab reduced risk of death by 31% compared with the standard of care in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer that had progressed on prior immunotherapy.

This CPG represents an update to SITC’s 2018 publication on immunotherapy for the treatment of NSCLC, and is expanded to include recommendations on SCLC and mesothelioma.

New research from Yale Cancer Center provides a new understanding of patients’ views of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. While comfort level varied by clinical application, most respondents had positive views about AI’s ability to improve care. Concerns surfaced when potential for misdiagnosis, privacy breaches, reduced time with clinicians, and increased costs were discussed.